Israel hits Syria’s coastal Tartus region with ‘heaviest strikes’ in over a decade: War monitor

In the latest wave of attacks, Israel struck Syria’s Tartus coastal region with the heaviest airstrikes in more than a decade, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), a Syrian war monitor based in the United Kingdom.

Over the weekend, Israel conducted a wave of airstrikes in Syria’s Tartus region along the Mediterranean Coast and struck missile depots and air defence systems.

The SOHR said that Israel conducted “the heaviest strikes” in the Tartus region since 2012.

The region houses two of Russia's prized military bases , including the naval base at Tartus and an airbase in Latakia, whose fat is now uncertain. Following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the area is currently under the control of the opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Russia has been reported to have started thinning its military presence in the region.

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Overall, Israel conducted 75 airstrikes in Syria over the weekend, including in Damascus, Hama, and Homs, according to SOHR.

So far, since the fall of the Assad dynasty, Israel has conducted more than 450 airstrikes inside Syria, destroying Syrian navy, several airbases, ammunition depots, missile sites, air defence systems, weapons manufacturing sites, and chemical weapons caches, among other targets. The goal behind these attacks is to prevent these weapons and weapons production facilities from falling into the hands of Syria's new rulers led by HTS .

Even though the HTS, led by founder and leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, formally cut ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 and has lately said it would run a moderate government in Syria, it continues to remain an Islamist authoritarian group. There is also a great deal of skepticism if the group and its leader have actually given up their terrorist ways or their promises are just a rebranding exercise to dupe the world.

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In addition to destroying military and defence industrial sites in Syria, Israel has also moved into a buffer zone along the Israeli-Syrian border and occupied it. Even as international organisations and regional players have condemned the move, Israel has maintained that the move is necessary to prevent HTS and other Islamists from setting up presence at the Israeli border and possibly entering Israel . Israel has also maintained that the occupation of the buffer zone is a temporary move though it could last for years.

In a visit to Golan Heights along the Israeli-Syrian border, Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi on Friday said that “there is a threat that terrorist elements could reach here”.

“We moved forward so that these terrorist elements will not establish themselves — extremist terrorists will not establish themselves right next to the border. We are not intervening in what is happening in Syria. We have no intention of managing Syria. We are unequivocally intervening in what determines the security of Israeli citizens here,” said Halevi.